Run an inspection program that finds problems before anyone else does
CHO Inspecting Labs and Facilities is an online course for Chemical Hygiene Officers (CHOs) on the inspections you run yourself: how to manage an inspection program across every lab, prep room and storeroom, and how to walk a lab so nothing gets missed. It turns an annual walk into a program with a schedule, owners, records and fixes that stay fixed.
It is written for CHOs in education (school districts, private and independent schools) and in industry (research, testing, quality control and manufacturing labs). Every lesson shows the step in a school or district and in a company or lab.
What you will learn
- Why Inspect, and What You Inspect Against: what an inspection is for, the OSHA, EPA, fire code and consensus standards you inspect against, and your Chemical Hygiene Plan as the source of the checklist.
- Building the Inspection Program: who inspects what, the kinds of inspection and how often each happens, and mapping your spaces and ranking them by risk.
- Before the Walk: fitting the checklist to the room, reading the history, planning the walk, and the yearly self-audit of the whole program.
- Walking a Lab: a fixed route, conditions and practices, talking to the people in the room, and recording a broken rule fairly.
- Storerooms, Waste and Shared Spaces: chemical storerooms, waste collection areas under EPA’s rules, prep rooms, gas cylinders, cold storage and shared classrooms.
- Checking the Safety Equipment: the equipment register, fume hoods between certifications, and test logs that prove each test happened.
- Findings, Reports and Follow-Up: ranking findings, writing findings someone can act on, the report, and chasing every finding to closed and checked.
- Running the Program All Year: trends and reporting to leadership, turning findings into training, records and the yearly review, and what your records show an outside inspector.
Finish with a working inspection program
Each module ends with a Task, and each Task writes one part of your own Lab and Facility Inspection Program: an inspection rulebook, a schedule and space map, a room checklist, a walk-through record, a storeroom and waste inspection, an equipment register and test log, an inspection report and findings log, and a year-end summary. Fillable templates are included for every part, and every module closes with “What you learned” flip cards.
Why this course
- Built on the rules: OSHA’s Laboratory Standard and its Appendix A (29 CFR 1910.1450), OSHA’s walking-working surface, exit route, eyewash, fire extinguisher, electrical, flammable liquid and compressed gas standards, EPA’s hazardous waste accumulation rules (40 CFR 262.14 to 262.17 and subpart K), and the current editions of NFPA 45, NFPA 10, ANSI/ISEA Z358.1 and ANSI/ASSP Z9.5, each cited in the lesson that uses it.
- Two settings, one course: school and company scenarios in pairs, with strong answers to compare against yours, and a practice walk-through of a drawn lab with ten findings.
- A companion to the Chemical Hygiene Officer Certification Pathway, the Chemical Hygiene Officer Leadership capstone and CHO Managing Violations: the pathway teaches what each inspection item must meet, this course teaches how to run the program and do the walk, and Managing Violations teaches what to do when an outside inspector finds something.
- Online and self-paced: work through it on your own schedule.
